Any change?

Six-point-three-million dollars. That is the severance Ed Martin received on his departure as president and CEO of Nalcor Energy.

Was he pushed or did he jump? Did he quit or was he fired? I will know the answer when I know the exact time Ed Martin removed the pictures of his grandchildren from his desktop, lovingly and carefully placed them in a cardboard box (not likely a 48-tin Carnation Evaporated Milk or Good Luck butter box), and then carried them down to his own, not the corporation’s, automobile.

How soon after Martin’s meeting with then new Premier Dwight Ball and newly minted Finance Minister Cathy Bennett?

At any rate, I, for one, hope Martin pocketed enough to help pay his, his children’s and grandchildren’s monthly light and power bills when the grossly inflated tab for the Muskrat Falls bacchanal comes due.

As for you and your money, dear taxpayer? Despite auditor general Terry Paddon’s efforts, you must remain in the dark and out in the cold.

I don’t have the history books handy, but I believe it was an accountant named Thomas Hollis Walker who was sent out by the British government in the late 1920s (before Baron Amulree) to inquire into Newfoundland’s strapped financial straits.

His conclusion after examining the books and overturning slime-covered rocks looking for slithery, creepy crawly things? The Newfoundland public service was like the Mexican army (Pancho Villa’s ride would then be fresh in the minds of newspaper readers, there being those years very infrequent radio, no television, no Internet or Facebook or Twitter and twaddle), that is, very low pay but limitless opportunity for loot.

Was he pushed or did he jump? Did he quit or was he fired?

Tom Careen Placentia